v Torquay

[Twyford Rebel]

So the attendance was only 1,292?  I'd heard that away ticket sales online when they stopped selling them, had reached 676, so only 616 home fans (and that assumes that there were no Torquay fans paying on the gate).

[Nathan]

This match was lost during an horrendous opening 25 minutes during which Torquay scored 4 times effortlessly and from then on didn't need to try. This bought back bad memories of the awful 2006/07 season, where week-in week-out the opposition would usually wait until going 4-0 up before seeing the game out without injury, safe in the knowledge that we were nowhere near good enough to get back into the game.

A poor turnout from the Rebels faithful (a crowd of 1200-odd and it looked like Torquay bought at least 700) were then treated to an absolute non-event for the next 60 minutes until Celestine-Charles scored a well-taken consolation goal. That really was as good as it got.

If anyone is looking for reasons to be cheerful:
1. now 8 matches without a win (9 if you include the Wycombe B&B match); that's 2 points from a possible 24.
2. successive tonkings
3. another match we didn't look like winning
4. another reason for any potential fans to stay away
4. another reason for the rest of the league and Maidenhead to laugh as us (thank heavens we beat them 2-2 in the cup final last week)

The "injuries", "we're safe" and "Torquay have money" excuses only go so far: people will be positive if given reasons to be positive. It can't be lost on the management just how quiet (and small) the crowd behind the goal was today; almost if if there's an end-of-season dead-rubber feel to it all. Which of course it wasn't, despite some idiot on here last week saying that it was.

I wonder if I'll get away with saying that this was an embarrassment?

[Rebellier]

I didn't hear any player of the match announcement,  but thought both Harvey and Dan had good games. 

Scott didn't look fit, and I couldn't believe when in the first half he kept passing to Reiss so that a long ball could be played!?

[G Brown]

I do struggle with some of the takes on here, what do people expect when we have the worst budget in the league (apparently!), the fact we’ve stayed up again is a miracle and the injuries are a valid excuse for our results of late, we simply do not have depth to cope. The reason to be positive is we have another season in the NLS to look forward to, go and ask the Eastbourne supporters what they would give for that chance!

It sometimes reads like some would like the club to get relegated so they can sit there and justify their takes, honestly it’s boring!

Desbois, Oshilaja, Borgnis, Ochieng, Tuma, Myers, Shakpoke, Makowski, Goddard… That’s 9 starters we haven’t had the luxury of selecting in the same team for bloody weeks/months, yes today wasn’t great but maybe give Scott and the squad a bit of credit!!

[Nathan]

1 hour ago, G Brown said:

we have the worst budget in the league (apparently!), the fact we’ve stayed up again is a miracle

1 hour ago, G Brown said:

It sometimes reads like some would like the club to get relegated so they can sit there and justify their takes, honestly it’s boring!

Relegation is inevitable if we insist on treating scraping 50 points as a miracle. It really is as if we believe we're too small for this level and don't belong here.

Where's the ambition to push on and be competitive? We've shown this season that it can be done. But as soon as we hit 49 points we sell our best players and our results tank accordingly.

This "plead poverty" attitude seems to be endemic at the club, which I think is utterly self-defeating, bizarre and very boring.

[Russ_Rebel]

So should we expect to scrape survival?....should we expect to stay up by the skin of our teeth?....and are we expected to be satisfied? ....and also what's wrong with forecasting the downfall? ..it's an opinion and looking at the teams coming up it's inevitable we're going to be in trouble.....just look at teams coming up/ going down teams around us etc bigger budgets ambitions 

Edited April 11 by Russ_Rebel

[GlenSTFC]

6 minutes ago, Russ_Rebel said:

So should we expect to scrape survival?....should we expect to stay up by the skin of our teeth?....and are we expected to be satisfied? ....and also what's wrong with forecasting the downfall? ..it's an opinion and looking at the teams coming up it's inevitable we're going to be in trouble.....just look at teams coming up/ going down teams around us etc bigger budgets ambitions 

As Scott says this league gets harder every year and yes next season will be even harder with the new teams entering the league. Unless we improve our squad or move towards full time it’s inevitable sooner rather than later we’ll get relegated. We can’t expect season after season to keep finding and nurturing diamonds. We either need to significantly improve our budget (yes I know extra money guarantees nothing) or accept what’s coming.

[Reading Rebel]

On 10/04/2026 at 17:59, sdelane1357 said:

We must stop the recent trend of giving goals away putting the team on the backfoot very early in the game.

COYREBELS 

Mystic Steve strikes again 

[G Brown]

7 hours ago, Nathan said:

Relegation is inevitable if we insist on treating scraping 50 points as a miracle. It really is as if we believe we're too small for this level and don't belong here.

Where's the ambition to push on and be competitive? We've shown this season that it can be done. But as soon as we hit 49 points we sell our best players and our results tank accordingly.

This "plead poverty" attitude seems to be endemic at the club, which I think is utterly self-defeating, bizarre and very boring.

It has nothing to do with anyone believing we’re too small for this level etc, it’s a matter of being real and realising we do not have the sums of other clubs, yet.

How do you propose we push on? Pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? How do you propose the club stop Desbois and Makowski from going to full time clubs that are at the level above or pushing for promotion? The club are trying, in the background, to get us in a position to push on but there is no magic wand.

Who is pleading poverty? It’s more about being real, Nathan and perhaps if you think you can do a better job, go and sit with Ash and the Board and understand where the club currently is. 
 

I, like others, do not have my head up my ass and be oblivious to how football actually works, and those that do, are as you say, very boring.

Edited April 12 by G Brown

[RebelVilla]

Perhaps on a side note, it was good to see the Torquay fans travel in numbers and not have a group of 'feral youths' in their ranks.

I hope they enjoyed their day out and all had a safe journey home.

[RoyalRebel]

3 hours ago, G Brown said:

It has nothing to do with anyone believing we’re too small for this level etc, it’s a matter of being real and realising we do not have the sums of other clubs, yet.

How do you propose we push on? Pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? How do you propose the club stop Desbois and Makowski from going to full time clubs that are at the level above or pushing for promotion? The club are trying, in the background, to get us in a position to push on but there is no magic wand.

Who is pleading poverty? It’s more about being real, Nathan and perhaps if you think you can do a better job, go and sit with Ash and the Board and understand where the club currently is. 
 

I, like others, do not have my head up my ass and be oblivious to how football actually works, and those that do, are as you say, very boring.

Spot on, there is no lack of ambition, just there is no magic wand, and those of you that blame the club for not having one are living in fantasy land.

[Norbert22]

The Forum Mafia are alive and well. 

[Holyport Rebel]

Yes, it was a disappointing scoreline yesterday.
It has been a long, hard season.
It seems a long time ago since that sunny afternoon back in August when we drew 0-0 away at Tonbridge in our first game of the season.
Fast forward several months, and we were 99.99% certain of not being relegated with ten games to go.
Ten.
I'd have bitten your hand off at the start of the season for that to be the case.
(Even  more so if I'd have known about all the injuries and so on we were to suffer.)
All of us of course would love us to be challenging at the top end of the table, fighting for one of those play off places.
Being realistic and facing the harsh facts of footballing life though, isn't lacking in ambition.
It's a dog eat dog world out there, and sadly for us bigger and more glamorous teams will always  take a 'lesser' teams best players away from them.
Blimey, even Manchester United lost the then European player of the year Christiano Ronaldo  when Real Madrid came sniffing for him.

It wouldn't be so bad for us if it was only one or two players that we lost this way each season,but from watching Scott's interview yesterday after the game, it seems once again that we will be in for a big turnover of players come season's end. 

Yet again Scott faces a hectic summer of trying to produce for next season a new team able to compete competitively at this level.
I wouldn't exactly call it a miracle what he has managed to do since he has become our boss,but I struggle to think of any other manager who could have achieved with us what Scott has done in his short managerial career. 
What other decent, experienced manager at our level would want to even try to achieve what Scott has produced when faced with everything that we as a club are up against each season ?
I thought Scott seemed very subdued and  deflated in his inteview yesterday.
More so than just because of the 5-1 scoreline.
It's been a long season for us supporters.
I can't imagine what it must be like right at the heart of the action.
I think Scott needs a good,long, relaxing holiday.

He deserves one.
From what I remember him telling us about his summer holiday last year though, I don't expect he will get one.
I remember him saying that his 'missus' was constantly complaining that he was spending more time on his phone doing deals than enjoying holiday time with his family, when they were abroad last summer.
Two more games to go this season.
In my eyes this has been a very successful one.
If someone  today could say to me that we will finish 5th from bottom next season and stay up, I would very happily accept that offer.
I wouldn't regard it as being unambitious or having an inferiority complex.

Of course I'd love to finish higher in the table.
But to me it's just a footballing fact of life, and where we are as a club right now.
 

   

Edited April 12 by Holyport Rebel

[Reading Rebel]

3 minutes ago, Norbert22 said:

The Forum Mafia are alive and well. 

Nobby, there is no Forum Mafia just opinions.

 

[Norbert22]

30 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Nobby, there is no Forum Mafia just opinions.

 

There is most certainly a Forum Mafia, determined to assassinate any deviation from their collective wisdom 

L

[Nathan]

5 hours ago, G Brown said:

It has nothing to do with anyone believing we’re too small for this level etc, it’s a matter of being real and realising we do not have the sums of other clubs, yet.

Why can some people not hear themselves? You said, as I've seen it said by others elsewhere many times, that staying up is a miracle.

This means that you (and others) didn't expect us to survive, and in fact believe that we are punching above our weight.

I'd hate for that to be true, not the great work that Steve Easterbrook and Bakes & Unders did in getting us back to this level. But I suppose it must be, as everyone seems to think that it is.

5 hours ago, G Brown said:

How do you propose we push on? Pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? How do you propose the club stop Desbois and Makowski from going to full time clubs that are at the level above or pushing for promotion? The club are trying, in the background, to get us in a position to push on but there is no magic wand.

So you're saying that pushing on is not possible? I'd say that giving fans a reason to come through the gates would be a good start. Sounds simple I know!

I know why we sold Desbois and Makowski, I remember defending the decision (from a financial perspective) to sell on here at the time. But nonetheless they were sold before we were completely safe and our results have suffered accordingly.

I mean suffered to the point where we're once again openly expecting to lose games. Nobody seemed to think that we could get anything at Chesham. Nobody was surprised by the result yesterday.

I know about our injury situation, but what really gets me is that nobody seems bothered by this.

6 hours ago, G Brown said:

Who is pleading poverty?

You did. When you said that staying up is a miracle as we don't have the sums of other clubs.

6 hours ago, G Brown said:

I, like others, do not have my head up my ass and be oblivious to how football actually works, and those that do, are as you say, very boring.

Why the rudeness? I do not believe that I've been rude to you.

[G Brown]

2 minutes ago, Nathan said:

Why can some people not hear themselves? You said, as I've seen it said by others elsewhere many times, that staying up is a miracle.

This means that you (and others) didn't expect us to survive, and in fact believe that we are punching above our weight.

I'd hate for that to be true, not the great work that Steve Easterbrook and Bakes & Unders did in getting us back to this level. But I suppose it must be, as everyone seems to think that it is.

So you're saying that pushing on is not possible? I'd say that giving fans a reason to come through the gates would be a good start. Sounds simple I know!

I know why we sold Desbois and Makowski, I remember defending the decision (from a financial perspective) to sell on here at the time. But nonetheless they were sold before we were completely safe and our results have suffered accordingly.

I mean suffered to the point where we're once again openly expecting to lose games. Nobody seemed to think that we could get anything at Chesham. Nobody was surprised by the result yesterday.

I know about our injury situation, but what really gets me is that nobody seems bothered by this.

You did. When you said that staying up is a miracle as we don't have the sums of other clubs.

Why the rudeness? I do not believe that I've been rude to you.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[G Brown]

We just both have different opinions, Nathan, which is fine but we clearly won’t agree so I don’t see any point in going backwards and forwards.

I just watch Scott’s interview from yesterday and the man looks drained, visibly drained and I feel he takes everything on himself, and at this time, well since Hornchurch, it’s clearly taken a toll, and when you have players all of a sudden say “I’m injured and can’t come on” when we have an injury crisis and the team need help is scandalous, and it’s basically kicking the man who backs them squarely in the plums in his time of need. I just think this whole discussion needs to be saved for the Board, as Scott reads this all and may take it personally, it would be good for someone above Scott to come on here and give their view and an update on the future of the club.

Mark my words, if Scott turns around and says I’m done, we will be relegated that season because no one gets it like Scott does, he’s a Rebel now through and through, he feels all our pain and I, for one, feel his.

Edited April 12 by G Brown

[bonjour]

Well we can't please everyone and it seems that some people are only happy when they are moaning, I should know as I have a mother in law who moans all the time and believe me it makes her so happy.

For those who know me I also stand next to one of the biggest critic/moaner there is going but even this year he (yes it's a he) has acknowledged the problems that we have faced and played some fantastic football.The turn around from half time at Maidenhead until the injury crisis that hit us again was incredible and just goes to show how good we are when everyone is available. I've said before if all our players were available every game we would be play off contenders but football doesn't work like that.

As it has been said sounds like Scott has another massive rebuilding job this summer, I remember him telling me the number of phone calls he made last summer. In Scott we have probably one of the best managers the club has ever had if not the best, remember back to the play off final at Kings Lynn in the 89th minute when a certain Scott Davies robbed a King's Lynn player of the ball went on a little tricky run passed it to Dobbo who sent a inch perfect cross to ? ( yes that's right the one and only Manny Williams who slotted it home to get us into the national south ) even now that brings a smile to my face, happy days.

So to all the negative people maybe the club could do what Woking done years ago and allocate a section of their ground which they have named moaners corner and then all those who want to moan can go in there and the rest of us can support the team and then everyone will be happy.

So onto Enfield for a final away game which has been a brilliant season and thanks to all of those at the club for making it so good.

Happy days

 

COYR

 

 

 

[RebelVilla]

I think that Moaners Corner would quickly become very full unfortunately. Still, at least it would give those fans who have a more realistic view on the situation more space.